I've had a lot of pets die on me in the past. I cared for all of them. I had the coolest pets, some where around before I was born so I just grew up with them being there and it's always been my firm belief that I don't know how or why or where but when I die, I'm going to see them all again. It's one thing I kinda look forward to. It'll suck to be dead but if I can see and interact with everyone I lost over the course of my life for even just one second, I'd be happy.
I shared this belief once with my childhood friend when his cat died. He's always been a very religious guy. We grew up in very different settings and had very different beliefs but it never bothered us to a large extent. I simply told him that I think he'll see his cat again in Heaven and thought he'd be cheered by the prospect of a reunion.
Instead he laughed at me and said that I was stupid for believing animals went to Heaven and that none of his pets or my pets will be there to see us when we die. Like I said, he and I have very different beliefs and he thinks a lot of the things I believe in are stupid or wrong so I often write this off but I was so shocked and devastated that he didn't believe that animals had the afterlife that he expects humans to that I was the one that broke for a moments and started crying.
I still don't know what to expect after death but even if it turns out that everything he believes in is true, I hope he's very wrong on this one point.